The Silent Star

It's pre-Oscar night at SteynOnline. I've reviewed three of this year's big contenders - Dunkirk, Darkest Hour, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But from the Sunday Telegraph corner of the Steyn archives here's my profile from a few years back of the indispensable man - the one star without whom none of this would be possible. I considered updating this to include a couple of Harvey Weinstein gags, but concluded I like it with the faint whiff of celebrity yesteryear:

He's short. He's muscular. He has no private parts. No, not Tom Cruise. We're talking about one of that select handful of silver screen legends recognised instantly by their first name alone: Brad, Barbra, Arnie ...and Oscar. He's Hollywood's most indestructible star, unless your chauffeur accidentally reverses over him in the limo. He has Tinseltown's most consistent year-round tan - a rich golden glow that you can see your face in, and sometimes your name on.

He's been to more Academy Awards parties than most, his place in the motion picture firmament so secure that, like Liz Taylor and Donald Duck, he's one of those rare stars who can dispense with the tedious bother of actually making movies. But, more than that, he's a great humanitarian: over the years no one has given more generously to sick people. Not too sick, mind you: just an award-winning left foot à la Daniel Day-Lewis or a few decorative stick-on lesions like the Aids-stricken Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.

Dunkirk seemed to go as far as they could to make the war seem terrible and worthless.

There was almost no context, and nearly all the proponents seemed ineffectual.

In their favor, a lot of what they showed was historically accurate, and at that point, Britain was losing the war rather badly.

Apart from the miopic presentation of events with absolutely no context the biggest problem I had with Dunkirk was its near total lack of grand scale. Because Nolan eschews CGI for the sake of authenticity the entire film of the battle/rescue looked and felt enemic.

The Nazis attacked by air and shelled the beach and rescue fleet incessantly (totally missing from the film). 60,000 French troops along with the British "lost battalion" fought a valiant rear guard action which delayed the Nazis advance and provided the time needed to rescue the hundreds of thousands of troops... totally missing, Nolan doesn't even show one single Nazis German soldier, not one! Disgraceful.

One more thing, by in large, most of the British troops were presented as fearful cowards, who just wanted to get home. While true in some cases, there was a near lack of bravery courage or dogged determination to survive and escape to get back in the fight presented.

And the civilian rescue fleet literally made up of over 700 small craft, of wich more than 100 never made it back. Nolan presents a mere handful of small boats, it looked pathetic, no scope or scale. CGI, tastefully applied and coupled with the small number of actual boats used could have provided the scope, and the grand scale of the operation. It was a missed opportunity.

If you want to see scope and scale of historic events done right watch "The Battle of Brittan", The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan, The Pacific, Band of Brothers. To name but a few.

If you want a genuine, historic overview of Dunkirk see:

http://dunkirk1940.org/index.php?&p=1_187

I like Nolan but while the visuals were stunning, Dunkirk the film fails on so many levels.

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